NOTEWORTHY

Blazing Saddles

Mel Brooks made mincemeat of the Western with this anarchic satire, interrogating the genre’s problematic racial history in his own gleefully ribald way. Cleavon Little leads in his role as the newly appointed sheriff of a predominantly white town — which is none too pleased to be taking orders from a black man — and Gene Wilder is a treat as his boozy gunslinger sidekick. The rapid-fire punch lines run from sophomoric to sophisticated, culminating in an inspired burst of surrealism that blows right through the fourth wall. — Charles Bramesco